


Of post boxes and puns

by doomed_spectacles



Series: If I could love like anybody else [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Banter, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Romantic Fluff, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles
Summary: The post box on the outside of the cottage occupied by one angel and one demon gets an upgrade.Or,Aziraphale and Crowley argue about the relative merits of puns and magazines while drinking lemonade in the sunshine of a garden of their own.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: If I could love like anybody else [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1504748
Comments: 26
Kudos: 104





	Of post boxes and puns

**Author's Note:**

> There's not much to this, really. Just a shared post box and a conversation in a garden.
> 
> Note: I'm American so we use mailbox instead of post box. If I've used post incorrectly, someone please do correct me. My understanding is it's more common to just have a slot for letters in the UK as opposed to a box attached to the house, but I'm pretending otherwise for the sake of fluff.

[2026]

“Shouldn't it be A & A?” Crowley asked, circling behind Aziraphale as he carefully painted delicate letters onto the metal box. “Instead of A & C?”

The tip of Aziraphale’s tongue stuck out in between his lips as he concentrated. He held the fine-tipped brush carefully in between his thumb and index finger while ignoring Crowley entirely. Little round spectacles he didn’t need had appeared on his nose.

The black metal post box attached to the ivy-covered front of their house had been labeled with a “1” in blocky modern lettering when they bought the deed. It suited Crowley’s taste just fine. Yet somehow he found himself watching while Aziraphale added their initials in delicately painted calligraphy.

Aziraphale finished the bottom part of the “C” with a flourish. He stepped back, assessing his work, and smiled. Then he turned to Crowley. 

“For what?” he said. He smoothed the front of his apron, which had appeared along with the little bucket of white paint and set of brushes when Aziraphale had decided that morning that their plain post box _simply wouldn’t do_. Around the cottage, he’d taken to wearing a more casual cream jumper over his usual blue shirt and bow tie. Though he’d barely used more than a few brushstrokes of paint, the angel had taken precautions.

“Aziraphale and… _Anthony_?” Aziraphale’s eyebrows drew together. His voice was skeptical. “Really?”

“Well it's not _my_ fault you don't have a surname.”

“I _do_ have one!”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to look skeptical. He leaned against the door-frame and pulled his sunglasses down. “What is it then?”

Aziraphale straightened. “If you’ll recall, my shop was called A.Z. Fell and Company for several hundred years.”

“Aziraphale Fell? Seriously?” 

Aziraphale took his spectacles off and cleaned them with his apron. He pursed his lips and didn’t need to say anything to convey what he was thinking.

“That's not a name. That's not even a pun,” Crowley replied, deadpan. “In fact it's _worse_ than a pun. And there is _literally_ nothing in the entire universe _worse_ than puns. You know how I know there is nothing worse than-”

“Don't say you invented puns.”

“I did!”

“You didn't!” Aziraphale insisted. “You always say you did and I let you go on about it for years but now that we're moving in, I simply must put my foot down.” 

He looked very earnest as he said this, like he was considering actually putting a foot down on their welcome mat, which was straw and decorated with an intricate pattern around the border. Upon closer inspection one might notice the border was made of snakes wrapped around a repeated pattern of swords. Crowley claimed to hate it. He’d put it out straight away and made sure Aziraphale sent a thank-you card to Anathema.

“You're putting your foot down? About puns.”

“Yes! I told you in Rome you didn’t invent them. You didn’t know Plautus like I did. And I told you again at the Crystal Palace when we were there for the Exhibition. Yet you keep insisting you invented puns, but you don’t have a head office to report to anymore, so I simply do not see why you continue on about it.”

Crowley scrunched up his face and watched Aziraphale turn, apparently done with the conversation.

“I’m going inside.” Aziraphale set his paint supplies aside. When he reached the kitchen, he turned back and called out, all traces of indignation gone from his voice.“Oh! What would you say to some lemonade?”

He looked back at Crowley with a hopeful look. A look so full of contentment and joy that Crowley wondered how the angel didn’t burst with it. 

“It’s a lovely day after all. Perhaps some lemonade in the garden would set you back to rights.”

Crowley opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out. He’d needed something to set him to rights for six thousand years, but sipping lemonade in the shade of their giant oak tree wasn’t it. Listening to Aziraphale go on about puns while he ate little apple tarts Crowley had bought from the bakery in town and licked his fingers clean of crumbs wasn’t it. _We can’t give up now, not after everything_ . Those words, the truth spoken desperately on an airfield at the end of the world. A hand grabbing his on a public bus. _To the world._ All of those had set him to rights.

Everything that came after was … Crowley couldn’t remember Heaven, but figured he didn’t need to. He had this.

“Crowley? Lemonade? What do you say?” Aziraphale asked, as if he wasn’t already pouring two glasses and magically refilling the pitcher.

Crowley shook his head. “I say ‘hello lemonade, my name is _Anthony_ , though you’d never know it from the post box’ is what I say.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. Crowley couldn’t see him do it, but he didn’t need to. He watched Aziraphale set the glasses and pitcher on a tray, adding the box of tarts and two plates as if Crowley wouldn’t give him every single pastry in his power to give.

When Aziraphale left the kitchen, Crowley inspected the lettering Aziraphale had done on their shared box. He’d painted delicate initials with an ornate ampersand in between. 

Crowley smiled, remembering Aziraphale, in monk’s robes much cleaner than they ought to have been, with the tip of his tongue stuck out between his lips as he carefully copied ancient texts. Aziraphale had been bathed in light somehow, despite the otherwise dim room filled with silent scribes. It was the first time Crowley had seen the angel completely engrossed in a human endeavor. He’d entered the scriptorium without Aziraphale noticing, and though Crowley teased him about it later, the unguarded glimpse he’d gotten of the angel had carried him through several dark ages to come.

Crowley picked up the paint brushes Aziraphale had left behind. He grinned to himself, because he could. He put his sunglasses on his head and concentrated on the tip of the ‘A’, adding a ring of paint to it in the shape of a halo. On the ‘C’, he added horns and a pointed tail. Inaccurate, yes, but unmistakable. He could live with a demonic stereotype for the sake of mischief.

Crowley banished the paint and brushes back to the ether and whistled a tune so old no one who’d lived for several thousand years would recognize it as he joined Aziraphale in the garden.

“What are you so concerned about having a post box for, anyway?” Crowley asked. 

He settled in his usual spot at the table and took a sip of lemonade. The afternoon sunshine was filtering through the trees, giving Aziraphale’s fuzzy hair a golden glow. Insects buzzed in the back garden, happily pollinating the bushes and flowers he’d given a talking to earlier. Aziraphale had made the lemonade a shade too sweet. 

“Getting any love notes I should know about, angel?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, but there was a twinkle in his eye and Crowley made a mental note to investigate the source of it later.

“Some chain letters miraculously still going round?” Crowley said it in a teasing tone, but Aziraphale immediately softened, his eyes softening around the edges as he remembered something fondly. Crowley had teased him for centuries just to get a hint of that look.

“Oh, those _were_ fun, weren’t they?”

“No, they weren’t.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, “perhaps I’d like to receive a periodical.” He took a bite of pastry, then made an appreciative noise. Crowley leaned forward, watching as Aziraphale smacked his lips and wiggled in his seat.

“A magazine? What, _Retired Booksellers Quarterly_? _Bow-Tie Enthusiasts_?”

“You’re making fun.” Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled.

Crowley was. He would continue to make fun until time ran out, so long as those little crinkles appeared around Aziraphale’s eyes when he did.

“Demon, remember?” he said, putting on an affronted look. “My job to make fun. If I started being nice it’d upset the natural order of things.” Crowley took another sip of too-sweet lemonade. He wondered if Aziraphale would notice if he spiked it. Figured he definitely would.

“If you say so, my dear.”

“Well it’s not like they’re going to continue your subscription to the _Celestial Observer_.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“They tried to kill you, angel,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “I don’t think you’re still on the mailing list.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Aziraphale said. He sighed, looking disappointed. “Too bad, I’ll never find out the answers to last month’s puzzle.”

Crowley gave him a look.

“Ah well. The _Infernal Times_ always had better cartoons anyway.” He giggled. “Might actually miss those.”

“Oh well, rest assured we’ll still get those.”

“Really? They tried to kill you too, Crowley.”

“Mmmm, yeah, right.” Crowley cleared his throat. He cocked his head to the side and said, “But who do you think invented the magazine subscription you don’t want but absolutely cannot cancel?”

He popped a small piece of tart in his mouth and pushed the rest to Aziraphale’s side of the table.

“At one point in the 2000s I had so many copies of the damn thing I accidentally reinvigorated the decoupage craze.” 

Crowley scowled, remembering the bundles in his flat that kept appearing despite the fact that he hadn’t received anything else in the mail since he’d gotten Aziraphale a Bakelite phone. He’d spent hours on Hell’s customer service line, amazed that he’d had nothing to do with customer service lines. 

“Made a killing on Etsy, though.”

“Oh now that is actually dreadful, dear.”

Aziraphale patted his hand in sympathy, then returned it to his side of the table. After a few moments, he seemed to realize something. He reached back across and took Crowley’s hand. He ran his thumb over Crowley’s knuckles gently.

Crowley smiled and turned his hand over. Birds chirped overhead and Crowley wondered if he should build them a house. Did they need houses? They built their own, didn’t they. Maybe he’d build one anyway, and let the angel decorate it. He’d put wings on it or something, and Crowley would scowl while putting it in the tree.

A moment passed, or three. Or three thousand. Crowley didn’t care. He’d been set to rights after six thousand years, and there was nothing on earth or beyond that could take this moment from him.

“What’s with you and the puns thing, anyway?” Crowley asked. He took a sip of what was now vodka lemonade. It was after five somewhere in the world, after all.

“Oh, well, you always seemed so proud of it, you know,” Aziraphale said, looking away. “You filed that report so very long ago. Egypt, I think?” 

He got a mischievous look in his eyes that Crowley instantly recognized but Heaven, to its own peril, never had. 

“I never had the heart to tell you that _I_ was the one who actually created them. Made the first pun, I did. Do you want to hear it?”

Crowley choked on spiked lemonade. It streamed through his nose as Aziraphale watched from his side of the table, smiling serenely and making absolutely no move to help.

**Author's Note:**

> (I can't be the only person old enough to remember chain letters, can I?)
> 
> [this is me on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/doomed-spectacles) if you'd like to say hi


End file.
